How to fix “Bad Request Error 400” for Gmail in Google Chrome

If you are signed into multiple Google account for Gmail using Chrome, chances are that you might have encountered the dreaded Bad Request Error 400 error. The error is so frustrating and vague that most users are left clueless on how to fix it. Most importantly, many of us do not have the time to fix the issue when we have to send that all important email. There are a number of forum posts on the Internet in which users mentioned that they have moved to Firefox or other browsers just because of this problem. It’s a shame that both the browser and the email are from the provider and they are yet to fix it even though users have had an issue for about a year!

But thankfully many users have improvised and found a workaround to this issue. The problem appears to be with the GMAIL_IMP value stored in the cookie for mail.google.com. No one seems to have an idea what is actually causing the error. Here I have picked 3 fixes and classified them as the Good, the Bad and the Ugly depending on the complexity of the fix. Let’s start with the Ugly… 🙂

The Ugly

Right click on the screen.

Select Inspect element.

Select the Resources tab at the top of the Developer Tools window.

Expand the Cookies section in the left side navigation by clicking on the arrow next to Cookies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Girish R is the founder of techathlon.com, he loves to write on technology, opensource & gadgets. At techathlon you can read his How-to, free and useful software related articles. He is on twitter too @girish_r